2023-11-07 22:19:47
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that the attacks by Israeli air, naval and ground forces on the Gaza Strip are a “extraordinary success”, one month into the war against the Islamist group Hamas, which has left more than 11,700 dead.
“I would like to tell you that what we see on the ground, from the reports that the War Cabinet and I receive, and the conversations with commanders and soldiers, is an extraordinary success”Netanyahu said, visiting the Tzelim military base, about 25 kilometers from the Gaza Strip.
Israel declared war on Hamas exactly a month ago after an attack by the Islamist group that left more than 1,400 dead and more than 230 hostages, while the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip has left more than 10,300 dead, almost 26,000. injured and 2,450 missing, most of them civilians.
On the other hand, in a television message from the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv, Netanyahu addressed his citizens to assure them that “the war is advancing with a force that Hamas has never seen.”
These statements come the same day that the Israeli Army announced that its troops, “For the first time in decades, they are fighting in the heart of Gaza City,” the main city of the Strip.
“Hamas is discovering that we are reaching places that I thought we would never reach,” stressed Netnayahu, who at the beginning of the war promised to erase the Islamic group from the face of the Earth.
In the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel occupied the Gaza Strip, a territory from which it withdrew in 2005 but has since been blocked by air, land and sea.
The prime minister echoed previous statements by Defense Minister Yoav Gallant by reiterating that “There will be no ceasefire without the return of the hostages,” about 240 people – including babies, women and the elderly – who Hamas militants kidnapped on the day of the attack.
He assured that he spoke with the Red Cross to demand the immediate release of the hostages, and for them to be visited by paramedics in order to guarantee their well-being.
He also reiterated his warning to militias in southern Lebanon, especially the Shiite group Hezbollah, to stay out of the conflict.
“We will respond with heavy fire to any of their attacks against us”Netanyahu said, warning that Hezbollah’s formal entry into the war would be “his worst mistake.”
Since the war broke out between Israeli forces and Hamas, the border between Israel and Lebanon is experiencing its worst escalation since 2006, with a constant exchange of fire that until now is not considered an open war.
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